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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

SYV are a rock group from Norway that came into being in the late 90s. Their music can be described simply as krauty motorik psych. In their own words: SYV's music could be described as weird and unexplained, sort of disconnected yet totally tuned in, laidback but sharp and quite bizarre in places. Fans of Circle will probably enjoy this a lot. Check out their Myspace page, too.

Problems That Fix Themselves is a moniker of Chicago, IL based musician Joshua Tabbia. "Seconds" is an eclectic collection of pastoral drones, sudden outbursts of (almost harsh) noise and driving electronic beats. The album is also available in a cassette form on Already Dead Tapes label. Also, make sure to visit Joshua's page.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Josh Down is a saxophone player/electronic composer hailing from Cambridge, England. His music ranges from relaxing, meditative saxophone improvisations, field recording filled soundscapes not unlike those of Ariel Kalma, spacious ambient, ominous and bass-heavy drones, even attempts at machine music with algorhitms inspired by the work of late John Cage. Highly recommended, this dude deserves recognition.

Ibiis Rooge is Neil Campbell (aka Astral Social Club) and High Wolf. The resulting collaboration is a collection of drooooning, sunlit, glitchy electronics with an occasional pulsing, dancey side provided by Mr. Campbell. Ibiis Rooge released two albums so far: "Pink Hybrid" on Winged Sun in 2009 and "Iibis Rooge" on Dekorder in 2010.

Rarely do I write about bands from my country, and maybe it is about time I should change that (if I recall correctly, there is only one album from Poland posted on this blog - it's "SunDro" by Kości, by the way - and that was over 2 years ago). Same Road is a three piece band from Koszalin, Poland. The guys play purely instrumental minimalistic post-rock/noise rock reminiscent of mid-90s Midwest bands with hints of psychedelia. In terms of similarity, I see them as successors/followers of legendary Słupsk group Ewa Braun - one of the best bands in history of Polish music, whom I shall post very soon. Same Road have their own blog and give free download links for their three albums.

Brian Pyle's (1/2 of NorCal improv/experimental unit Starving Weirdos) Ensemble Economique project is like the polar opposite of SoCal's Sun Araw: while Cameron's music is the epitome of tropical bliss and relaxed meditative high on the beach, Ensemble Economique is like a bad trip somewhere in the tropics, like stumbling straight into a voodoo ceremony while being high as a kite: things may seem like a joke at first but it stops being funny very quickly and suddenly you're terrified and you want to run away. But you can't.

"Psychical", the newest record from EE, released on LA imprint Not Not Fun, offers eight unsettling ritualistic soundscapes reminiscent (both visually and musically) of old, cheesy horror movie. It's like remembering fragments from a movie where the guy is given a mysterious mixture and buried alive somewhere in Haiti, but you can't remember the name of the film or the actors. Heavy synth drones coexist with looped exotic drums, and occasional psychedelic guitar freakouts add yet more layers to the already tightly packed environment. To add to this, Pyle masterfully mixes weird vocal snippets into his music in "Red for the Sun", "Shacks Built from Plyboard" and "Real Things" - all of them in thick Jamaican/Haitian accents which add a sense of partaking in a mass of some forgotten illegal/cult - the real standout here is "Red for the Sun", in which the looped "preacher" keeps talking about sun, blood and (not surprisingly) marijuana.

Ensemble Economique's newest album is truly a headfuck, and not for the faint of the heart. It also points into an interesting direction - it's a fusion between Shackleton-like dub and psychedelic drone/synth scene. Although it is sold out at the source (NNF website), you can still buy it from Insound or Midheaven Mailorder.

Monday, November 22, 2010

People who are into modern psych in general probably already know Adam Forkner's project White Rainbow. Long, free-form psychedelic ambient explorations. The man has a Bandcamp page, too. The albums can be "bought" through the name-your-price method - there is no minimum set, so you can download it for free, too, if you want! Very cool stuff, Forkner's music is quality in itself.

Shoegazey (at least I think it's shoegaze-influenced, I've only heard Loveless by MBV, lol) drones with wordless (I think) vocals. This is how they describe themselves: "The Slaves are a girl/boy duo from Portland OR trading in gothic drones and slowed down 50’s pop and surf. Using voice, feedback, and synths Barbra Kinzle and Birch Cooper create an overwhelming and melancholic beauty. Mastered by Matt Carlson of Golden Retriever" (it took me a while to get over that 50's pop and surf thing, it's ridiculous how far people can go to sound original in their "inspirations"). Anyway, you can listen to the full album on Bandcamp, OR download it from here:

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Sacred Harp is Daniel Bachman from Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA. His music is psychedelic folk heavily influenced by American Primitivists such as Robbie Basho - that is, amazing fingerpicking passages combined with heady droning ragas. Really worth checking out, this man puts an amazing amount of work into his music.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Pre-compass is Jason Edgil. He describes the name of his project: like Pre-cum-piss, like 'before there were compasses'. The sound of the project can be described as deconstructionist ambient/pop vignettes, heavily inspired by "SAW" era Aphex Twin, ranging from whimsical bursts of distortion ("Big Guns"), melancholic keyboard workouts ("Princessless"). The two real standouts on the album though are the opening track "Ipods", which sounds exactly like something Tortoise would come up with and "Mamma's a Cannibal", which just asks for a minimal techno/microhouse beat to be added. Lots of potential this guy has. Bandcamp

About Weed Temple

This is a blog devoted to psychedelic, experimental, noise, folk, rock, drone, electronic, ambient and krautrock music. Basically, the name of the blog gives a pretty good idea of what kind of music you can find here.

If you are an artist or represent a record label and would like to have the link to your album removed, OR you'd like to send your music contact me at cosmicinferno@gmail.com .